We investigate the impact of polycentric urban form and decentralized employment onresidential location decisions and non-work motor vehicle travel. We first present empiricallytestable models of the interaction between urban form and motor vehicle travel demand drawnfrom urban economic theory. We then model travel behavior responses at the household levelusing a dataset that combines tour-based activity-travel data with land-use measures at the U.S.Census block group level. Our travel behavior data comes from a sample of 15,884 householdsfrom the Florida add-on version of the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), asprovided the Florida Department of Transportation System Planning Office. Using geographicinformation system mapping software, we merge the NTHS data with parcel-level housing datato estimate accessibility measures. Preliminary findings provide evidence linking measures ofpolycentric urban form to changes in home-work commuter patterns and changes in non-workmotor vehicle travel. We observe that residency status positively affects residential locationchoices, as indicated by selected residency tenure variables. Households residing in the State forless than two years have a 10-percent longer home-work commuting pattern. These householdstend to have a more disperse activity space (a realization of the time-space prism), resulting inincreased miles traveled and longer home-work distance. The combined effect of relocationpatterns on the demand of travel results in an increase of about 21 percent in daily tour-levelvehicle miles of travel and an increase of about 5.7 percent in the size of the activity space.These results provide evidence to support policies that would reduce the spatial allocation ofactivities and improve connectivity to other modes of transport at and around subcenters.
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